


two negatives

by hydrogenbismuth



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Depression, Eating Disorders, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:29:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28552398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydrogenbismuth/pseuds/hydrogenbismuth
Summary: ...make swishy black skirts and acidic anger for dinner.a story about two struggling girls.
Kudos: 2





	two negatives

**Author's Note:**

> originally written in 2016 in russian  
> translated into english in 2021

When I first see you in autumn, I think we could become friends. Every classmate seems to agree - one of them introduces you to me and says, 

"You two have the same name and like sad music, now be friends."

You smile, awkward and nervous, your long wavy hair falls in your face as you nod and you tuck it behind your ear with a usual and completely common gesture. I watch, then look into your eyes and wonder how they can be so big and bright.

"I'll be there for you if you ever need me -"

The bell rings and you flinch, losing the train of thought.  
You walk into the classroom and I notice how high your heels are.  
I try not to notice how thin your legs are.

I'm sitting outside the classroom and for a split second, because of your high heels, the end of your skirt is at my eye level. Your stockings have the London skyline on them, and I realise how dumb I was to think you would want to be my friend. I am wearing giant puffy red boots and a shapeless sweater. I am 150 lbs. You are just lightness and stray butterflies.

"You have cute stockings."

Now you have a smile but you cover it with your hands.

Two days before Halloween I find out that you love train rides, clothes with hoods and that you have six coats.  
I also find out that you haven't eaten in two weeks, has almost died two times and that your body is covered in scars.   
I finish my sushi while you head to the bathroom after leaving more than half of the food on your plate untouched.  
Only a week later I understand what you were doing there.  
Before my eyes, your stray butterflies morph into vultures praying on your consciousness.

I rarely look at you - only when you pass by me, when I hear your voice, when I catch a whiff of your bittersweet perfume, when I feel how empty my stomach is, when someone mentions food, when someone calls your name. It was once mine too, but you took it and made it only yours. And part of me thinks you deserve it more.  
Part of me thinks I will have worth only when I understand firsthand what you went through.

And I almost make it. Black boots, black skirt, black turtleneck. Mint tea and cold water.

I break on day five, sobbing in the empty school corridors. You notice, you try to help, you ask whether I would like for you to hug me. I hug you, leaving tears on one of your six coats, and think about how you don't want this hug, but I want it more than anything in life. 

"Eat."

You leave but the smell of your bittersweet perfume still hangs in the air. It settles in my stomach and later I try to kill it with every single thing in my fridge. 

Winter goes by as I lose pound after pound, but your image is still out of reach. Nothing is working and I carve my disappointment into my legs and wrists.

We are walking to the bus stop together and you are talking about yourself for once. You tell me how you were betrayed, how everyone laughed at your problems, how you can't find meaning.  
You talk so quietly I can't hear a thing.

All that matters to me is your salvation.

"I'm sorry you don't eat pizza."

"What? Oh, it's okay."

"That is exactly what I'm sorry for."

At our class celebration of New Year's, you get a present with a sticker that says 'The Kindest Heart'. As you angrily tear the sticker in half, I scream on the inside from the feeling of helplessness. The culprit is that you choose to be friends with people who degrade and use you, and I am left behind watching you get worse every day.  
You won't let me close because I want to help. Because help means food and that is taboo for you.  
My taboo is your eyes.

I hate my body - it's enormous. I hate food - it follows me everywhere. I hate this world - it tells me to be thinner but everything it talks about is food.  
But the thing I hate the most is the clicks of heels, the bittersweet smell and your dragged out, never-ending 'sorry'.  
You are poisoning me, you are backing me into a corner, you are tearing my reality apart, you are cutting my wrists.  
You will never be able to apologise, and I will never be able to forgive you.  
Because you have nothing to be sorry for, and I have nothing to forgive you for.  
I am in a vicious circle of you, your words and your actions.

For my birthday you give me a bag full of sweets. I laugh and cry, eat, swallow, eat, choke, hiccup and gorge myself on jaffa cakes and chocolate while cursing you, myself and the one who made us this way.

I hit the lowest point in spring. The days are longer and the smell of flowers is nauseating and eating an apple is a tall task. I chuck it in the bin and look at myself in the black and white bathroom mirror. My face resembles a dead tree, grey matter, a sick animal. It doesn't resemble your clean, sharp and vivid image.  
I drink a lot of water and come back to class to talk about lunch and dinner, cheese and salami.

There is no you in summer. I can finally feel something besides chill and emptiness.  
When I go to a camp for ten days I don't eat for half of it. There is no one to stop me, only me, water and sharp pain every morning.  
When I go back home I eat a big burger with a side of hatred.

You happen to be in a bad mood and I try to help as much as I can while having a panic attack myself. This is when I get what I wanted for the past year.

"You are my saviour," reads your message and I curl up under the piano in the corridor, feeling completely nothing.

And I earnestly hope you will leave my mind in autumn, but then I smell your perfume, see your new stockings and watch as you smile with your cherry-red lips.   
On your thin, delicate and fragile wrist, which looks like lined paper from all the scars, is one word written in blue pen - 'FAT'.

I can remember more days of starvation than days of happiness. I can name more diets than people who love me. I can find more reasons to die than to live.  
You took my name, my identity, my problems and my strengths.  
You replaced my dreams of academic achievement and travelling with dreams of being so skinny you could die.  
You sliced my heart into tiny pieces with your fate.

You started smiling more, without covering your mouth with your hand and became more confident. You accomplished so much despite your struggles. You are still here no matter what happened and you want to keep going.

I hate and love you more than anything in my life.

Like food.

Like myself.


End file.
